


A little 'gall on gall'

by giveherswords



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: A little 'gall on gall', Blood Play, Blood and Gore, F/F, Harrow is a sadist, Kink Meme, NSFW, Nasty blood magician smut, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:07:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29200308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giveherswords/pseuds/giveherswords
Summary: “You know, Harry,' Ianthe drawls, 'When you told me you liked sweetbreads, this is not at all what I had in mind.'She very deliberately relaxes into her makeshift bone manacles, head lolling against upraised arm, legs spreading in mock submission.'But I always did want you to eat me.”Post 'Arm-scene' -- Harrow re-experiences "the sheer animal pleasure of Ianthe's arm"... and then some.
Relationships: Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Ianthe Tridentarius
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33
Collections: TLT Kink Meme





	A little 'gall on gall'

Ianthe walks to the closet. I can see her opening and closing her fist, feeling for substance. She stretches her naked fingers, yawning them wider and wider until they snap closed. I don’t like the way she pulls at them with her flesh hand, like touching a body that isn’t hers. In a moment of clarity, she returns to the bed and rests the new hand, flat and palm down, on the headboard next to my head.

“I wouldn’t bother,” I say, “I’ve had enough bloodshed tonight.”

“Harry, you can’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it.” I can see her throat muscles twitching as she smirks.

“There is always pleasure in a job well done,” I respond. She says nothing.

Instead, she leans forward – I have enough time to intercede – and kisses my bottom lip, then the top. She kisses my throat, gets carried away and tumbles forward. I feel the cool scrape of her phalange against my cheek.

“I can help you,” she says, “Let me help you.”

I gently circle her new wrist and, in a moment of weakness, lean into her hair.

“I don’t want your help.” 

It’s not the first time I’ve said it, but my voice comes out strange – real but not ready. She turns onto my body, and I think she is going to cry, but she doesn’t.

“You’re so coy. We can pretend I’m dead if that helps... get things going.”

Her voice has gone cold. For a second I panic and look around wildly, expecting the Body to be keeping vigil at the bedside with us. But the room is dark, empty but for the ludicrous frill, now half stained with her lifeblood. I think it’s a fine improvement.

She has stopped kissing me and waits, her biochromatic eyes half-lidded and predatory. I can feel blood drying and tightening into a flaking shell on my skin. I want to slough if off with my nails. I want to run my tongue along my own stained skin and taste her.

I do not deny the desire I felt, even to my most private self. Kneeling between her thighs just minutes ago, feeling the ebb and flow of her muscles as I pulled bone from the wet maw of her shoulder. But to indulge? To continue?

“Can you feel it?” I ask, my hand beginning a slow exploration of her new arm. A single finger slides between her ulna and radius, that tender gap between bones. I apply pressure to the apex, fleshy finger pad sinking slightly into the exposed cartridge. Ianthe gaps, and tilts her head back to expose a long pale column of neck.

“Or maybe you want me very much alive,” she groans, “Enough to self-indulge in your work.”

Her flesh arm has moved to the headboard, gripping it white- knuckled, and pinning me to the bed. I feel full, afraid. Desire rushes through me, white-hot, and I return my mouth to hers. This time I am conscious of her tongue, which pries through my blood encrusted lips and begins a thorough exploration of my jaw.

“I’ll let you do whatever sick things you want to me, Harry,” Ianthe whispers, “I always knew the Ninth would have some fucked up desires.”

New warmth soaks the fabric between my legs as she lowers herself on to me, her thigh parting my own. The hard pressure of her knee on my clit jerks me awake, pulling me from the masturbatory stupor of touching her arm.

“Wait,” I grind out, “Sit up.”

She obeys, muscles twitching as she rises, still half straddling me.

“Lay on your back.”

Grinning, she arranges herself on the bed, the gold of her gown turned nearly black with dried blood.

“Take that off,” I gesture at the dress. She stares at me greedily as her hands slide across the silk, searching for the hem.

Without breaking eye contact, she shifts her crossed arms and tugs it over her head. Her skin is deathly pale, but for the rouge of heat on her neck and breasts. Blood has congealed and cracked along her torso, running in dark rivulets over her hips and thighs. She spreads her legs, revealing the warm pink curve of her body.

“Tell me,” I say, “What do you know of the Ninth?”

With a flick of my hand, I conjure two studs of bone, which rise from her wrists to impale her arms to the headboard. She screams so loudly the note splits in two. I curl my fingers tightly, my knuckles locking in a line as she gasps, her tears hot and then cool on her face as I take the pain away. I store it elsewhere, and immediately pump dopamine into her, my left hand on her thigh enabling the Lyctoral connection. The room smells like iron. Her hands are shaking and she can barely breathe through the alternating cycles of pain and pleasure.

“My theory,” she gasps out, “My theory is that you and all your house are sadists.”

She whimpers and heaves, throwing her head forward as, with both hands, I pair a chemical release with a grinding shard of bone.  
Her body is now glossy and sweating. I say nothing as I add notches of cervical bone to her bedpost, arranging her spread- eagle arms within the circlet. She looks almost holy.

I bring her to an increased level of ecstasy, and in doing so, soak the bed with fluids from her body. Blood mixes with sweat, which mixes with the translucent liquid between her legs, and I lose purchase on her thigh, my hand slipping between her legs.

“I thought you’d never find it,” she teases, looking up at me from between lowered lashes. The hot red slit of her mouth is wet from her own saliva as she pants, ribs expanding and contracting with effort.

She – no – I am shaking. Not from exhaustion. I feel my muscles coil, feel myself become ripe and taught at the realization. She grunts as my hand finds new purchase, extending my fingers across the sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs.

Not so different from my previous exploration of her arm, I apply a light pressure before pulling away, sliding down. Her nipples harden as I press my fingers against her entrance, dipping in and out of sight, moving but not pursuing. Her arms still hang above her head, pinned by the extended lunate of her wrist, but I temper the pain, numb it into submission.

Ianthe is now completely focused on my hand, which has begun a steady rhythm between her legs. She gasps and pulls at her restrained arms, bucking her hips in attempt for more pressure, more contact, more feeling. I do not give it to her.

Instead, I raise my right hand, allowing her to watch as I grow a knife of bone from my knuckles. The plink-plink-plink of my blood dripping onto her stomach is the only sound aside from her hitched breathing.

“You know, Harry,” she drawls, “When you told me you liked sweetbreads, this is not at all what I had in mind.”

She very deliberately relaxes into her makeshift bone manacles, head lolling against upraised arm, legs spreading in mock submission.

“But I always did want you to eat me.”

I lower the sharpened edge of my hand to the soft meat of her stomach, but go no further. Ianthe has begun a quick tempo of breaths, each falling into the other in her own excitement and fear.

“Harry,” she whimpers, but it comes out slurred and twisted, no more than a small moan.

“Breathe,” I command, “Steady and through your mouth.”

I am certain that if I do not continue, I will grind my own teeth to powder. Every inch of my insides is twisting into an obscene knot, begging for release. Ianthe obeys, caging her breath into consistency. In, out, pause, repeat.

“Do you want me to say please?” Ianthe asks, “Do you want me to beg?”

She looks up and I am almost certain I see a challenge in her eyes. In response, I slide down the long tunnel of my mind, then surface again, but covered in something heavy and dark. I part my lips in quick prayer and sink fully on to her. I am still completely clothed, the gentle weight of my exoskeleton shifting as I angle myself slightly. 

In quick succession, I use my own bladed hand to rend the last scraps of my already blood soaked vestment, baring myself fully. The exoskeleton crumbles to dust around me, falling like cinereous snow on the bedsheets. Ianthe inspects every inch of my body as she waits for my next move. Obedient, her mouth opens and closes, as if to speak. Her teeth are stained slightly with blood but she smiles anyway. I am uncomfortably reminded of her sister.

“I am not going to eat your organs,” I say, sotto voce, “But don’t worry, this will still hurt.”

I slowly trace my right hand, bladed, along the pale swatch of her inner thigh, and she takes a sudden breath as her skin parts a little at the center, like a mouth opening. In my excitement I have forgotten how profusely iliac veins bleed. Her blood rushes to the surface as if it has been waiting and pours, streaming and hot, over my hand.

Using my left, I paint pointer and middle finger red to the hilt, and trace up her thigh to rest at her entrance. As if she was not already soaked. Ianthe cries out as I slip the two bloodied fingers inside her, curving them slightly. Deep inside her body, something beats. The glaze of sweat and smell of her desire turns me on, cracks me open in a way I hadn’t known existed, and I let out an involuntary moan.

She responds, moisture beading at my fingertips as the innermost muscles of her body contract around my fingers. I increase the tempo of my hand, the soft mouth of her wound already healed into a fading silver line. 

“Again,” she growls, “I need –” She breaks off as I open a second cut, directly under the first. Her cry reaches me through a haze, the sound dampened and distorted. I am focused entirely on her pleasure, and do not notice the shift in weight as her thigh rises to press against my groin.

The pleasure hits me a second later, and my muscles cramp hard, like folding themselves in half. I bite my lip and feel the distant throbbing film of sweat on my inner thighs, pressed squarely against her own. My body slides, slick as I grind against her leg. My left hand consistent in its purpose inside her, the right methodically parting the flesh of her inner thigh.

I hear the crack of bone as she rips her arms from the headboard. Blood sprays across my face and drips into my mouth as her ruined wrists heal themselves. No longer bound, her hands find purchase on my hips. One slides up my back, coming to rest against my neck. She grips me there, hard, and moans loudly as I press deeper into her, adding a third finger, then a fourth.

“I’m so close,” she gasps, “Don’t fucking stop.”

I’m close too, but I focus on my hands, on the feral pleasure of her pain. As if from a distance, I hear my own voice call out, high and unrecognizable. She lets out a scream as she reaches the peak, the inner muscles of her body pressing fully onto my four fingers, knuckle deep. She bucks her hips, pressing her thigh against my clit as she rides it out, dislodging my hands so that I grip the headboard. She pulls me down onto her, grinding against me and pulling me with her.

The orgasm is hammered out of me, beaten until glowing. When I come, I do so painfully and with extreme restraint. I feel pleasure sitting on my chest, pushing the air from my lungs, which comes out in an embarrassingly feminine moan. The air is heavy with the smell of sex as I close my eyes, fighting the release.

Ianthe tries to draw me harder against her, her larger body crowding against my own. I can feel her, I can see her. We take turns with our vocal chords, our moans repeating over each other. A chorus of ‘yes’ and our names, nearly unintelligible through swollen lips.  
Her mouth finds mine, in those final seconds, as we burry deeper into each other and reach mutual release. 

The shocking level of intimacy should set me on edge, should push me away. Instead I surprise myself and dive even deeper. Tongue, fingers, limbs, blood, all mixing in the culmination of our pain.

“All right,” she gasps. She is weeping softly. Every sniffle pushes her back a millimeter until she is lying flat on her back. She grins, the striation of pale skin cleaned by her tears, in stark contrast with the red flush of her cheeks. Here, more than anywhere, she looks most alive.

“It seems we have a lot more in common, Harry.”

I kiss her to silence her, disturbed by the implication that we are similar. She continues against my mouth, slightly muffled.

“This makes more sense than you might think.”

“How so?” I respond, disentangling myself from her prone form and sitting up. I ignore the latent tug of pleasure from my clit at the sudden friction.

“I don’t care what the evidence says.”

My voice shakes at the end, ruining the grave tone and shining a bright light on my insecurity. Impulsively, I tug at a strand of her yellow hair. Her face flickers in the half-dark, and she looks suddenly young. The truth is, I don’t want to acknowledge the glaring proof, the concrete seriousness of her body, our similarities, our connection.

“Okay, yes. Well, yes, a little” I say, “Yes.”

She is not a religious woman, and therefore the expression on her face unnerves me in its reverence. I pray silently in a way I have not done since I was a child, knowing I’ll need every blessing of divinity for this next act.

“Open your mouth.”

Her lips part as I lift my left hand, still slick from her body, and bare my wrist. I bring the stained blade of my right up in a quick arc, slicing through the paper thin layers of sinew. My blood splatters across her face, peppering her skin red.

She moans hungrily as, leaning over her, I press the gaping wound of my wrist to her mouth. My hand half cups her face and she closes her eyes, the pink muscle of her tongue stained red as my blood drips down her throat.

This transfusion, this sharing of salt, of iron, is far more intimate that any previous touch. I feel her drawn into me even as I flood into her. The blinding sensuality of the act unveils something at my core. I am left skinned, each disturbing divot and fear laid bare as her tongue conducts its final sweep of wrist.

My skin, of course, has already healed over. The fine silver line nearly indistinguishable against my wrist. I feel her bone fingers dig into the flesh of my arm as she holds me steady. Reflexively, she wipes her hand across her mouth, catching a smear of blood that doesn’t belong to her.

“I want you to remember,” she gets out, right before I feel a new tugging at my skin. I watch the pale line on my wrist stiffen and peak, ridging gently. A month old wound, semi-healed and pink, now marks where her mouth once was. I could easily remove her work, but I do not.

“And how will I ensure your memory?” I ask. I am disturbed by how easy it is, being with her.

“You think I could ever forget this?” she replies, sitting up so we are almost face to face. The ‘almost’ lending her nearly a foot of height, without even standing. I feel small, and suddenly exhausted. The chemical high of pain has retreated, exposing an empty husk. Leaving me a strewn beach full of discarded bones.

I sway. It is too much for me. The collective amassing of pain, the deep weariness of orgasm. The buzzing confusion of my own lust, like a toothache I can’t help but worry my tongue against. Ianthe takes a long, languorous swallow and offers me a small smile.

“You should know,” she whispers against my neck, lowering me on to the bed beside her, “I guessed right from the very start.”

I am tried, and so I let her take over as she runs her hands over my body, kissing me sweetly on the mouth. A mouth that tastes like metal and sweat.

“Can I?”

Her voice is thick. She kneels above me, her naked face admitting what her mouth won’t say. She’s the one who wants to be cut open, to have someone tell her their secrets. There is certain shame in desire. And yet I am as vulnerable as a child beneath her. Naked, bloodied, exhausted past the point of movement. When I nod, I am equal parts scandalized and curious.

Without hesitation she pours herself on to me. She scales the walls, trips the alarm. She is breathless, waiting for my body to respond to her. And I do.

I feel my heartbeat in my teeth as her hand moves between my legs. I am thinking of her and only her as she edges me, bringing me closer to that cliff I pull back from. She whispers to me, telling me of her desire, her fears – these I already know – her love.

“Does this feel good?” “Yes.” “Like this?” “Yes.”

She’s hungry as she kisses me, almost forceful in her need to provide pleasure.

“Use your mouth,” I gasp. I want the long, flat plane of her tongue against me. I want it desperately and I want it now. She obeys, sliding between my legs and hitching my thighs onto her broad shoulders. Hips propped up, she glances up at me and grins.

“I like how you taste.”

This almost tips me over the edge, knowing the secreted wetness between my thighs is her doing. The power shifts, imperceptibly.  
She breathes into me, tongue licking a long stripe up my middle before sliding back down. Measuring, tasting. I cry out from the sheer pleasure of it, and dig my hands further into her hair. I lose track of time, each wet gasp followed by repeated gesture. Ianthe consumes me, she fills me.

I’m panting when I gasp, “Don’t stop, don’t—” I overflow, crying out as something implodes. I feel more than hear her moan against me as I cum, hard. This time there is no restraint as I tumble off the ledge. I will myself not to resurface, to stay in the dark ambiguity of my own mind.

When the points of light stop flashing, I realize I am crying. I try to pick up the shattered pieces of self, but they dissolve through my fingers like fog. Ianthe comes to me then, in a way she never has before. I can only describe it as gentle.

Long, cool fingers press back the soaked hair on my forehead. My eyes are still closed, but I feel the bed shift under her weight as she stands. Moments later the rough brush of cloth against my neck startles me awake. My cheeks heat as I realize she is bathing me.

“What did you think flesh magicians were into, anyway?” she asks blearily. “I’ve hardly been secretive about where my tastes lie.”

“No, you haven’t,” I respond, subject to her continued washing.

“This has been nice. Really great, actually,” without pausing for breath, she continues. “Do you think we should set up another time—” I cut her off.

“Let’s just get some sleep,” I say, ignoring her sentiment completely. I avert my gaze from the drooped edges of her frown.

“Ok,” she says dryly. She sets about cleaning herself and I rouse to a seated position.

“I don’t think we should sleep here tonight,” I say, glancing at the crime scene of the bed and Ianthe laughs. 

“What, a little too much gore for a nun?”

I ignore her teasing and stand, my legs as feeble as a colt’s. 

“Let’s just go to my room.”

“And what, get murdered by our brother?” “You can set the wards.” “I’d rather sleep in my own filth.”

At this I give up, and begin pulling the bloodied mess of sheets from the bed. She assists in the removal of our consummate proof, leaving the soaked linens on the floor. Underneath, the mattress has remained partially intact. Partially being the operative word.

“I guess we’ll be sleeping without sheets then,” she says, “All the better for me, as we both know you have the running temperature of a corpse.”

She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively and I try not to roll my eyes. Clambering into bed, she reaches over and turns the light off, leaving us in heavy darkness.

“Goodnight, Harry,” she whispers, inching closer and closing the gap between us.

I subject myself to the press of her arms across my torso, the heat of her breath against the back of my neck. She does not wait for me to respond. I don’t.


End file.
